Since majority of the population rely on crop farming for their livelihood, most are food insecure.This exposes such households in Kitui County to food insecurity and general deterioration in their livelihoods.Rain-fed agriculture is the main economic activity in Kitui South sub-County and therefore highly affected by rainfall variability . Livelihood vulnerability assessment has not been undertaken to establish the extent to which rain-fed crop farmers in this area are vulnerable to rainfall variability. The current study,therefore, sought to assess livelihood vulnerability in the study area so as to determine specific household level mitigation measures. Multi-stage sampling design was used to obtain the administrative locations and households to be included in the study. All administrative wards in the sub-County were listed and clustered into six agro-ecological zones (AEZs) namely LM4, LM5, IL5, IL6, UM3-4 and UM4. Three wards (Athi, Mutomo and Kanziko) were purposively sampled to represent the three main agro-ecological zones, LM5, LM4 and IL5, where crop farming is dominant.

Three administrative locations,hydroponic grow system one from each ward, were also purposively sampled based on proximity to administrative centres for institutional support. These were Mutomo Location (in Mutomo Ward), Athi Location (in Athi Ward) and Kanziko Location (in Kanziko Ward).Proportional sampling was used to obtain the number of households’ heads to be interviewed per location. According to 2009 Kenya’s population and housing census, the study area had 3,409 households . A list of all heads of households engaged in crop farming was obtained from the Chief’s office of each location to form the sample frame. Krejcie and Morgan formula was used to obtain the number of households to be involved in the study . All households in the sample frame were assigned numbers and a simple random sampling was used to obtain the respondents to be interviewed during the household survey. Makindu Meteorological station was purposively sampled to provide rainfall data for the period 2016-2018 for analyzing rainfall variability. The station was picked since it is the only synoptic meteorological station near the study area with reliable rainfall data. The three-year period was used to provide six rainfall seasons for calculating vulnerability to rainfall variability among the farming households.Questionnaire was used to collect data from all the sampled households’ headsin the study area.

Data was collected on socio-demographic, economic and biophysical variables of the households. The questions were semi-structured with dichotomous responses, multiple responses and open ended questions. In addition,secondary data relevant for this study was obtained from existing literature including published reports,indoor garden journal papers and on-line resources. The study established that majority of the households had difficulties accessing three meals in a day for entire twelve months of the year. Only 6.8% of the households could afford three meals in a day. This indicates that households in Kitui South sub-County are likely to have a higher sensitivity to rainfall variability.Female-headed households had the highest number of months that their family could not have three meals in a day with the majority (35.7%) being those who missed three meals in all the twelve months. Households headed by people aged between 36 and 50 years were the highest in missing three meals in all the months. However, no households headed by the young (less than 35 years) and the aged (over 65 years) people had three meals in a day for all the twelve months.About 37.0% of households headed by a person with primary education level did not have three meals in a day for the twelve months but, in general, none of the households headed by people with informal education had three meals in a day for the twelve months. The larger the size of households, the more they were unable to have three meals in a day. None of the households with members between 11 and 15 had three days in a day for all months while all households with over 15 members had up to five months without three meals in a day. A considerable number of households (36.7%) earning an income of less than 5,000 Kenya shillings per month did not have three meals in a day for all the twelvemonths. This finding is similar to that of Sabila (2014) who established that the lower the income, the less the number of meals households had in a day in Mount Elgon sub-County in western Kenya .